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Alpine lakes are lakes that are located in the alpine zone of mountains - meaning in elevations above the tree line.

Due to the extreme conditions of the environment in the higher elevation, alpine lakes offer crucial habitat to many species that are unique and endemic (i.e. found only there)

Alpine lakes in Greece are an important mountainous habitat. In the Mediterranean climate of Greece, the role of such lakes as a year-round water supply is crucial for the health of the ecosystem (i.e. wild fauna and flora). The larger ones have water yearround, while the smaller ones (i.e. alpine ponds) are seasonal.

Thousands of years ago, when the last glaciers melted off from the Greek mountains, they gave their place to glacial lakes. These lakes - which are today characterised as "alpine" due to their location in high elevations - were therefore created by glacial water. However, as glaciers no longer supply water to those lakes, after the summer months alpine lakes get replenished with water through precipitation (i.e. rainfall, snowfall) during fall and winter, and snowmelt runoff in spring.

Alpine newts found in Central Europe, West Balkans, as well as Spain, Bulgaria and Greece. They are mostly common in high elevations (700-2400m above sea level). There they inhabit alpine lakes, ponds and alpine grasslands. Alpine newts lay their eggs in the water. The tadpoles that they later become, live fully underwater until their metamorphosis – a pattern of gradual development of the tail, shortening of the intestine, disappearance of the gills, and development of lungs (a cycle similar to frogs’!). After the tadpole metamorphosis, alpine newts live in both land and water, and therefore, they are amphibians! As amphibians, it’s crucial for them to have access to a water body. Therefore, Mediterranean alpine lakes are crucial for the species’ existence as they allow them to survive the hot & dry summers of the Mediterranean climate.

High elevation ecosystems are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as organisms – like the alpine newts – have adapted to survive to very specific conditions. Anthropogenic activities such as livestock grazing, swimming/stepping on the aquatic vegetation, and pollution of the lake water and surrounding soil, all have negative effects on the habitat in which alpine newts live and lay their eggs.

Due to their remoteness - not a lot of human interaction, long existence and slow change over time, they are a perfect source for long-term climate change data about the past, that help predict the climatic conditions in the future.

Not every alpine lake is suitable for data collection. Due to their remoteness and the harsh conditions of high elevations, data collection in alpine lakes is very difficult. Additionally, the lack of low-cost scientific instruments that can operate in such difficult conditions makes research in alpine lakes - and the alpine zone in general - even more inaccesible.

It is now a scientifically proven fact, that the higher elevations are changing faster than lower elevations around the world - this is called elevation-depended warming. On top of that, the Mediterranean mountains and alpine lakes are a great climate change indicator. This means, that by monitoring how they change, we can make assumptions on how climate is changing in lower elevations too. In the LiMnADs Project, we installed a self-developed autonomous underwater station to monitor the conditions of the water of alpine lakes, as well as an automatic weather station to monitor the atmospheric conditions in the area. This allows us, for the first time, to collect daily water parameters from that environment, that will help us better understand climatic change in the region.